This is a very cool metal finishing process

Check this shit out -- a nickel coating with Teflon particles embedded in it. Amazing stuff. The technology of metal finishing has come a long way in the last 30 years.

Attack at Iraqi girls school thwarted.

Harry Reid was unavailable for comment.

MNF-I

Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers foiled an insurgent attack comprised of numerous improvised explosive devices targeting an all-girls’ school north of Baghdad April 28.

Soldiers with 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, discovered a command wire leading from the school’s outer perimeter to one of the rooms at the Huda Girls’ School, in Tarmiyah, Iraqi. Inside the room, the cavalry troops discovered five artillery shell explosives[...]

[...]The unit believes Al Qaeda extremists, operating in the area, are responsible for the emplacement of the explosives in an effort to thwart the progress the local government has made to improve the lives of the people of Tarmiyah[...]

UK now allows morons to teach school

Right. The real question here is how stupid can someone be and still appear to function in everyday life outside an assisted care institution. The bar seems to be getting lower all the time....

Western Telegraph

A Syrian-born airline pilot allegedly tricked a schoolteacher from Haverfordwest into having sex with him by pretending he had to administer ointment on the end of his penis, a jury heard yesterday (Tuesday).

Fadi Sbano, 38, even pretended to know a gynecologist who advised him on how often to have intercourse with her and whether to thrust "slowly or quickly". And, on the "doctor's advice", he kept a clock on the bedside table to time the sessions.

The teacher put up with the treatment for nine months before telling her doctor[...]

H/T Code Monkey

Supercomputer shows intelligence of retard mice

OK, so we can simulate the behavior of a retarded brain damaged mouse, and it only takes 4,000+ CPU's with 256M of memory each. I'm completely underwhelmed. OTOH, morons like Harry Reid might be able to get a brain transplant and upgrade their intelligence to that of a low level brain damaged rodent.

BBC

[...]The team, from the IBM Almaden Research Lab and the University of Nevada, ran the simulation on a BlueGene L supercomputer that had 4,096 processors, each one of which used 256MB of memory.

Using this machine the researchers created half a virtual mouse brain that had 8,000 neurons that had up to 6,300 synapses.

The vast complexity of the simulation meant that it was only run for ten seconds at a speed ten times slower than real life - the equivalent of one second in a real mouse brain[...]

Cordless tools approach lethal voltages

Today I saw this line of DeWalt 36V cordless tools in a store. They seemed too large, heavy, and expensive to cause me to give up my stable of lesser voltage tools that are performing just fine. However, the 36V thing got me wondering just how little voltage it takes to cause an electrocution under the right circumstances.

This Wiki article claims fatal electrocutions have occurred with as little as 32 volts -- a number I vaguely recall reading in other trade journal articles on electrocutions.

There was no antarctic ice sheet 3-4M years ago.

Prior global warming periods are attributed to obviously natural processes. Curious that current warming MUST BE OUR FAULT when past episodes (of thus far unexplained origin) were far more dramatic melting antarctic ice sheets completely.

NZ Herald

[...]Twelve million years ago, at the bottom of the core, it was cold, says Naish. The bottom looks pretty similar to the top, which represents a million or so years.

The middle of the core, however, is much more dynamic and variable. Scientists can see periods where the ice sheet and ice shelf disappeared, around three to four million years ago[...]

Saudi "beauty contest"

I think I'd rather hit one of those than Rosie O'Donnell. The camel's got a better disposition.


NZ Herald

The legs are long, the eyes are big, the bodies curvaceous.

Contestants in this Saudi-style beauty pageant have all the features you might expect anywhere else in the world, but with one crucial difference -- the competitors are camels[...]

"BOGUS": Have you ever wondered what the word's origins are?

Some explanation and history, which may of course all be bogus ;->

"Stunt rats" used in GMTV garbage story

Heh, we have THIS STORY over at Blue Crab Boulevard about some moronic Brit TV station that did a story about garbage in London. Seems the producers hired some non-union "scab" rats to frolic around a dumpster they were filming in front of because the unionized rats wanted no part of faking a news story.

The 1st amendment is dead.

Here we have a story about a high school student tasked with writing an essay on anything who chose to write it about a weird dream he had. He was subsequently arrested and charged with disorderly conduct based on the contents of the essay.

The thought police have arrived...and they're arresting people.

McDonald's Happy Meals - not just for kids anymore

Happy Meals...indeed ;->

FoxNews

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A grandmother was alarmed to find a condom in a happy meal gift pack bought for her 7-year-old granddaughter at a McDonald's (MCD) restaurant in New Zealand, local media reported Thursday[...]

Washington Post bash Harry Reid

Not good when Pravda on the Potomac stops carrying water for, and excusing the bungling of a big name democrat. Broder's columns are usually real snoozers...better sleeping aids than a bottle of Jack and a handful of sleeping pills, so you know "Give'em Defeat" Harry is in trouble now. Maybe they'll start really investigating some of his shady land dealings if they really want to see him gone.

WaPo

[...]a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance[...]

Morons provoke crocodiles, kid gets eaten

Natural selection. Seriously, does anyone who would beat and provoke crocodiles deserve to be procreating? I submit to you the answer is NO.

CNN

A crocodile shot to death in south China during a search for a missing 9-year-old student was found to contain the child's remains[...]

[...]"The children shot the animals with catapults and beat them with wooden sticks," the agency said. "One of the irritated crocodiles bit Liu's clothes and dragged him into water, where he was eaten by a swarm of crocodiles."[...]

(kinda) Hometown attraction is getting a facelift

About 40 miles from where I grew up. Quite a place and worth a visit if you're ever in the Albany NY area. As a little kid, the place was just fascinating.

Troy Record

The new owners of the mammoth Howe Caverns, which changed hands this week for $3.7 million, are planning an extravagant facelift to shore up its reputation as one of New York's most-popular natural attractions.
Wright-Galasso Inc. expects to invest $2 million in the next two years to improve cave lighting and renovate a gift shop, entrance road and the historic Cave House Hotel. Over the next decade, it aims to expand the cave tour by 1,800 feet and open a historic entrance not used by tourists for more than a century[...]

Anbar sheiks forming anti-insurgent party

They all supposedly hate us and all is lost (according to Harry Reid), someone needs to smack these guys with the cluebat and get'em back on the defeat train. The democrats can't tolerate this kind of local sentiment with an election coming up.

LA Times

[...]One purpose of the party, Sattar said, is to promote a better image of American-led forces "to the Iraqis here."[...]

My monster staghorn fern

I can't belive I'm plant blogging now...but I just noticed this staghorn fern that sits in one of my mahogany trees has gotten huge. I don't normally pay much attention to what's out in the yard, but this fellow is extrordinary. It started out as a little tyke about the size of an orange, and now its taken over the whole base of the tree. That pick is clickable for a larger image.

Another kinda cool plant in the yard is the century plant. Deadly buggers. Those black tips on the end of the leaves are sharp as a needle. Put one of these suckers in front of a window and no burglar is coming through it. A few years ago I had one of these decide to flower (a rare event). It shot up a stalk that was higher than the roof that had the flower on it, then eventually dropped hundreds of little babies on the ground.

Alligators

Some of my "helpers" that were crawling all over out in the swamp ;-> There's only 4 of them in that pic. Some places had 20+ within a few hundred feet of where I was.

Global warming wakes long dormant volcano

What the hell, they want to blame everything on global warming, so I've decided to start blaming volcanoes on global warming. Forget about limiting CO2, what we need to stem this plague of volcano "awakenings" menacing mankind are some virgin sacrifices.

AP

Thousands of people were evacuated after a long-dormant volcano erupted late Tuesday and again early Wednesday, provoking avalanches and floods that swept away houses and bridges.

The Nevado del Huila volcano's eruptions were its first on record since Colombia was colonized by the Spanish 500 years ago[...]

Do the Florida Marlins really "need" a domed stadium?

It adds $100M+ to the cost of a stadium. In reality the northern teams suffer rainouts much more often than the Marlins ever did. We get rain here, but in the summer its more often late afternoon showers that pass. There are rain delays occasionally, but a total wipeout here in south FL is a very rare event.

Had the team not insisted on this dome nonsense and its outlandish cost, they could have been in a new stadium by now. Morons.

MLB.COM

[...]The Marlins were rained out three times in 2006, all on the road. Florida's last postponement at Dolphin Stadium was on Sept. 5, 2004, when Hurricane Frances forced the rescheduling of a series with the Cubs.

40mpg Mitsubishi Outlander SUV warrants a yawn?

I'm sure this is Imperial gallons, but still, any SUV that does well over 30mpg US gallons would be hot news if offered here in the US. This one has a VW diesel engine. I could go on and on about the virtues of VW's diesel engines. Suffice to say, my 99' Jetta diesel gets better mileage than Honda's hybrid if its not being flogged, and you can pack a lot more crap into that Jetta's trunk.

Independent

It is with a weary heart indeed that, this week, I have been driving the new Mitsubishi Outlander. I know, I know, one more wretched SUV. Does the world really need another?[...]

[...]I am not necessarily opposed to SUVs on environmental grounds - the Outlander manages a respectable 40.9mpg[...]